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Daily Archives: August 3, 2010

Brand new video by one of the best female MC’s out there today, Psalm One, who will be featured in my forthcoming hip-hop cookbook, Which Is My Favorite Dish?, which I’m still putting together right now.

The song is from Psalm One’s forthcoming album, Woman At Work Vol. 3, due out via Rhymesayers.

I’m old enough to remember when the first MTV Video Music Awards looked no better than a pricey MTV Basement Tapes. Hell, I’m old enough to remember MTV Basement Tapes. Can I hear it for Liner Notes and IRS’ The Cutting Edge? I received this press release for a dance video being nominated for this year’s VMA’s and it lead me to asking a few questions:

1) Who the hell is Cascada?
2) Why is MTV still doing the VMA’s?

Apparently Cascada came out with an album about a year ago, but while my ears aren’t tuned to the dancefloor, I’ve never heard of her. It is possible that she may be one of hundreds of faceless dance songs that might be on the radio, but I rarely listen to the radio anymore. When I do, I hear the same Train, Creed, Creedence Clearwater Revival and ZZ Top song I heard a few days previous.

The point isn’t about the appeal (or lack of it) of Cascada, more power to her. But I had to do a search and see who else were nominated for an MTV VMA in 2010. Anyone remember when a “Breakthrough Video” meant something? I… don’t know. I’m not taking away the fact that music videos today are at their best today, more than they’ve been in the last ten years. The demise of heavy music video rotation on MTV has made artists and directors more bold and daring, and arguably the videos I’ve posted on this very site in the last year are incredible, moving, and very much breakthrough. How come this wasn’t nominated?:

What’s wrong, it wasn’t Madonna or Lady Gaga?

Or this:

Maybe this:

Oh, how about this:

Or something like this:

I think MTV should stop doing an awards show that has nothing to do with what the network stands for. I’m sure Diddy will show up, no doubt Snooki will be there and maybe a thousand Eminem‘s, but give me a break MTV, you stopped being relevant after the demise of Yo! MTV Raps. You lost the M in your logo but still hold it up with twigs, now you removed the “Music Television” from your logo and yet you go out of your way to tell the world “we care”? What a disgrace to artistry and music in itself. MTV, go home and cook rice. Here’s a video for you. It was relevant then, and despite the new costume it wears almost 30 years later, relevant now.

Scholar Man made this link available in a recent Tweet and I had to pass this along. It comes from today’s Washington Post in an article written by Monica Heese about a new phenomenon… well, a mini-phenomenon that will no doubt move a generation of youth to overdose on this “drug”. But it’s not a drug, but rather sound. Click the video.

The claim is that if you download audio and specific software from i-doser.com, you are able to have “binaural brain doses”. Unfortunately, it’s similar to Kanye West speeding up songs and making it into a brand new production technique. Truth is, speeding up sound to create “chipmunk funk” isn’t a technique, it goes back to the days when everyone had records and we wanted to play it from 33 to 45 or 78. As for this “audio high”, it’s nothing more than creating music in a fashion that sounds like it will take you on a mental trip, but it’s really a mixture of production techniques that have been done since the dawn of stereophonic audio.

Which leads me to this. Does this mean if today’s kids want an old school guy, they will raid thrift stores and find old stereo bongo albums from 1961? Or even better, will they discover the joys of quadraphonic or 5.1 surround sound and have audio orgies? Will people go to The Last Airbender with blindfolds, and just simply trip out on the sound? Think of the possibilities. Maybe this is the hook surround sound fans have been waiting for. Oh, if Frank Zappa lived long enough to see this.

i-dosing. Remember friends, if you don’t want to go overboard with your music, just take half a tab, or in this case, an 8-bit mono MP3 at 96kbps, thank you.